La Raza President Janet Murguia testified on April 22, 2013 before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States would like to learn English. However, she said the cost of filing for amnesty is prohibitive. That said, if illegals must spend all their time scrimping to apply, she concluded, it leaves them no time to assimilate.

As for scrimping to apply for status adjustment, documents uncovered from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the Obama administration’s Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program contains a complex system for DHS to follow in the case of an application that is unpaid due to Non Sufficient Funds. DHS and ICE are famous for saying that all amnesty programs are self-funded by the applicants. But that is obviously not possible where no payment was collected and the deficit is exacerbated when the agency bends over backward to keep unpaid cases alive.

The problem is that legal taxpayers have already fronted the cost of processing an application that is abandoned. Moreover, time, energy, and resources spent attempting to prod applicants into compliance is never offset, even if an applicant ultimately pays because the cost of applications is based on payment in the first instance. So, American taxpayers not only front the cost for abandoned applications but in fact wind up subsidizing the applications of late payers.

This initial release of DACA policy documents came in response to an October 26, 2012 request for records filed with several law enforcement agencies pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552. Judicial Watch launched this investigation based on an anonymous tip that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been ordered not to conduct background checks on DACA applicants.